Man Of Steel Review

So here is my next review in my Superman movie series, Man Of Steel, the first in what was supposed to be the new Zack Snyder DC Universe otherwise known as the Snyderverse, funny looking back after all this time as to how exactly that all went! But that’s a conversation for another review, this time we are just going to look at this movie on its own, what it did well, what I wasn’t a fan of and my overall feeling now after rewatching it again.

So lets start with this, visually this film is stunning, one thing Zack Snyder knows how to do well is make a fantastic looking film. The first thing we are introduced to is this incredible vision of Krypton, very different from the other movies but much close in my opinion to the comics, the landscapes, the scope of it, the suits, this planet is fully realised and adds so much more gravitas to it when the inevitable happens! I’m gonna come right out and say it Russell Crowe is my favourite interpretation of Jor-El, he cares about this planet and you can tell, he’s spent so long trying to save it and even at the end he does everything he can to save what he can of his homeworld, I love it all…… well all except those prison pods that look like they were bought from Love Honey, that’s definitely an artistic choice lol

Michael Shannon as Zod is excellent, different enough from Terrance Stamp that you don’t really compare them but still with enough passion that you can kinda see where he’s coming from at points, you know until he tries to terraform Earth, not cool Zod, no cool!! And all the additional Kryptonian zealots really add to the overall threat to Earth and Antje Traue as Faora is an absolute badass!

So lets talk Superman, Henry Cavill is an amazing Superman he has that quiet strength but immense passion for life that is a fundamental part of Superman as a character and I really like that, he looks great in that suit and overall just awesome, however here is where things don’t really gel for me, obviously this is a different take on the character and I dig that I don’t want to see the same things over and over again and I really don’t mind sad Clark trying to find his place in the world, what I do struggle with is this version of Ma and Pa Kent, they have always been Kal-Els humanity, they ground him and show him how to be a good person, in this film they are definitely not that! Its odd to say but Jor-El has more humanity than Jonathan Kent, my favourite line of this film will always be this from Jor-El –‘You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.’ all of this is what Superman is, but then you have Pa Kent telling Clark to hide who he is, I dunno It just doesn’t sit right with me.

Lois can be a difficult character to crack, you need strength and tenacity without making her a unlikeable and Amy Adams nails it, I have no issue with her knowing Clark’s secret straight away, she’s a world class reporter it just makes sense and the scenes between them are exactly how you’d imagine their relationship to be, they work best as a team not Superman just saving her all the time and I really like that about this film.

Now to tackle the controversial ending of ‘Superman doesn’t kill’ well he does, he has, probably will again, does he like it, of course not but if there are no other options he does what is needed to save the world, he has to make the hard decisions for the betterment of mankind and always puts them first, that’s what Superman is, that’s why he’s an inspiration, so ultimately that didnt really bother me too much.

Overall I really like this film, it’s aged really well and sure while there are things that I’m not a huge fan of there’s more than enough that I love to make this an enjoyable film and one that I’ll happily watch over and over again. Oh also Hanz Zimmers soundtrack is incredible and for me Superman’s main theme from it is nearly as iconic as John Williams, not quite, but very nearly!!

If you haven’t seen this in a while definitely have a rewatch and enjoy it as a stand alone Superman movie, we will get into the DCU issues next review when I tackle Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice!

Superman IV Review

So, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, where do I start?…..

I always say films are subjective and different people take different things from films but on this occasion I think we can all agree that the final entry into the Christopher Reeve Superman franchise was bad, really, really bad. Not that I don’t love it, I do, I genuinely cant help myself but to love its over done cheese, complete lack of reality and super hammy performances!

So the budget for IV was cut dramatically due to it being put out by Cannon rather than Warner Bros themselves and boy you can tell, bot just due to the fact that a lot of the special effects shots are just reused bits of Superman from other films and put over new backgrounds but the location of Metropolis, in the past New York has been a perfect stand in for the Big Apricot but less money means less resources, so New York is replaced by Milton Keynes……now I’m not sure if you’ve had the pleasure of visiting Milton Keynes but I actually used to live there and believe me New York it is not! It is cool being able to visit actual places that are featured in the film like the Train Station which doubled as the UN and the outside of the Daily Planet, the Home Retail head office as the high end Metropolis Hyatt Hotel, or the Bannatynes Health club (former Winter Gardens) being the Metropolis museum, but once you’ve seen them in real life you get how much they cut that budget!

So location aside the rest of this film doesn’t fair much better which is a shame as Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder return to their roles after their absence from Superman 3, and all the usual suspects are back in force Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure and obviously Christopher Reeve but they are joined by Lenny Luthor played by Jon Cryer who has taken over his uncles role as it were by playing Lex on Supergirl and hes doing an incredible job there! Then there’s Sam Wanamaker as David Warfield and Mariel Hemingway as his daughter Lacy Warfiled and lastly Mark Pillow as Nuclear Man……and that’s where things fall apart, not because Mark does a particularly poor job as Nuclear Man, he works with what he’s given and unfortunately what his given is just well, kinda trash.

The story as a whole isn’t a bad one, Superman ridding the planet of Nuclear weapons, Lex takes advantage of that and creates a being to destroy Superman perfect comic book story but to do it live action takes time and money and a good script and this film just has none of that and it’s a shame, also Christopher Reeve has a writing credit on this film and apologises for it in his autobiography haha!

A lot of licence is taken in this film, with Superman’s powers, his ability to rebuild walls with his super vision is a new one, with reality, Nuclear Man flies Stacy fully into space and shes absolutely fine, which I guess would be ok if we hadn’t seen Russian Cosmonauts at the beginning of the film in full space suits….I could go on! Though that scene where Superman puts all the Nuclear missles into a massive net and hoofs it into the sun is still amazing!

Now while I may have just written about how bad this film is, I still hearken back to one of the first things I said, I love this film, it fills me with good memories, I remember when it came out on VHS for rent and my dad spent £25 to get me an ex-rental copy and I wore that tape out, for me it was just more Superman, sure now I can look back and see all the poor quality things about it but then it didn’t matter to me, it was more Superman and I loved it.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is looked at as a low point of the Superman franchise or in film generally and I get that, I can see that definitely. But I also see 9 year old me running around with a red blanket on my back pretending to fly and that for me is more important than anything else, films are for entertainment and this film above anything else sure is entertaining 🙂

Superman III Review

I ask you to kill Superman, and you’re telling me you couldn’t even do that one, simple thing. – Ross Webster

So here we are in what a lot of people class is the down turn in quality of Superman films, do I agree? I guess to a certain point sure, there is definitely a shift in tone to a more comedic one to accommodate the inclusion of Richard Pryor. I have great memories of this film as a kid due to it being a little less serious.

But does this make it a bad film? Personally I don’t think so, it’s not as good as the first two obviously but it’s still a serviceable film, with some good elements in it. With Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor gone and Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane reduced to almost a cameo that does open the film up for new people to take their place. Enter Robert Vaughan as Ross Webster owner of Webscoe Industries and just a hellbent on World Domination as Lex, with his sister Vera and ‘psychic nutritionist’ Lorelei by his side his penchant is for coffee and oil! And he needs help from Richard Pryor’s Gus Gorman, but we’ll come back to him.

And in place of Lois we have Lana Lang played by Annette O’Toole who would go on to play Ma Kent in Smallville, I think Lana is an excellent addition to the movie, we saw a little of her and Smallville in the first film but here Clark’s early life is really fleshed out and I for one love Lana as a character, the difference between her and Lois is really shown here, Lois has her obsession with Superman but Lana always cares for Clark first and foremost, this is no more evident than the scene where Lana asks Clark if he can get Superman to come to her son Ricky’s birthday and when he says he can she replies ‘Superman is wonderful… but Clark… you‘re the best’. Clark deserves some attention bless him.

On to Gus Gorman, Richard Pryor is amazing, let’s start there, was it right to try and write a Superman film around him, probably not but his performance as Gus a jobless down on his luck nice guy turned super hacker is awesome, he’s earnest as down to earth and makes you really warm to him, especially the scene in Smallville with Brad getting drunk and trying to insert both keys at the same time into the computer terminal is one of the best scenes in the whole film! Even though he’s part of the bad guy team you know he’s in over his head which keeps you pulling for him through the whole film, also he’s really funny, sure it’s not you’re standard Pryor affair but he does well with the material he’s given!

So the biggest thing about this film is the whole Superman Vs Superman, after given a variation of Kryptonite with an unknown element in it, Superman slowly turns bad and apathetic, it’s closer to a version of Red Kryptonite but I guess that would’ve taken too much explaining! So after him flying around causing mischief like straightening the leaning tower of Pisa and flicking peanuts into bottles of booze and generally being a scamp, Superman has a crisis of character and goes and splits in two like any good hero turned villain and fights himself! This scene is epic I don’t know what more to say! its Clark fighting the worse version of Superman and winning, giving us one of the best moments of any Superman films of him pulling open his shirt revealing the S underneath, incredible! I even own an amazing painting of that exact scene!

As a whole could this film have been better, of course, there a few films that can’t be improved but is it a bad movie? I don’t think so, just because it’s different from the first two doesn’t make it bad its just something else, it adds to the lore of the first two by putting in more Smallville and Lana, it gives you a new villain that’s not just Lex again, well not completely more like Lex Light haha and a robot woman, who lets be honest was super scary but defeated very easily! And who didn’t want to play that Superman game from the super computer!

I like Superman III a lot, some of it is nostalgia of course but its not a terrible movie, its just more lighthearted than the other two. Now lets see if the same can be said next time with Superman IV The Quest for Peace………somehow I doubt it!

 

Superman Comic Strip Messenger Bag Review

So I received this awesome Superman Messenger bag from Retrostyler.com to check out and give you my thoughts!

The bag is made by Uwear and is an officially licenced DC product, it measures 36cm (W ) x 29cm (H) x 9cm (D), has an adjustable strap a outer zipped compartment and also a inner zipped pocket

So first off it looks amazing, I love stuff that looks like they’re wrapped in comics, without actually being wrapped in comics because that would be bad!, its some great comic panels repeated all over with the classic Superman title logo all over, the print also continues on the shoulder strap which is a cool touch. I like the fact that it has a couple of zipped pockets, one on the outside and one inside, keeps things nice and secure. Size wise its pretty good, it has a good depth to it you can fit quite a bit of stuff inside, width wise you can fit a small laptop easily inside, the strap extends pretty far so you can have it hanging nice and low and the padded strap cover is comfy, it also has rubber feet that will protect the bottom of the bag while you put it down.

Overall I really like this bag, its the perfect comicon bag, its well made, a decent size and comfy to wear, the bag isnt super wide so it might not fit like a bigger laptop in it but this is the perfect size for a tablet, some comics and maybe a pop vinyl or two! I go to a lot of comicons so this bag will be getting plenty of use!

Thanks to the guys at Retrostyler.com and don’t forget you can get 10% off you purchases by entering the code EARTH-9-10 at checkout, so head over and check out more of their stuff!

Superman Symbol Striped Strap Watch Review

The awesome guys at Retrostyler sent me this awesome watch to check out, so take a look at my video review below!

If you love DC and watch to get your hands on some awesome DC merch then head over to Retrostyler, they have everything you could want and by being a fan here at Earth9 you even get a special discount, just add the code EARTH-9-10 at checkout for an extra 10% off!